


The Girl Next Door

by LuckyPenny36



Series: Across the Channel: Five Times for Work and Once to Remember [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 5+1, Aziraphale and Animals, Aziraphale’s rebellious compassion, Bored History Major’s First FanFic, Crowley rescuing children, Gen, Hundred Years’ War, alternative history
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-06
Updated: 2019-08-16
Packaged: 2020-08-10 08:02:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20132065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LuckyPenny36/pseuds/LuckyPenny36
Summary: Crowley is sent to France to sow doubt among the faithful during the Hundred Years’ War, but the Arrangement and a child get in the way.“Was he really going to saddle himself with a lonely, friendless little French orphan just to spite some moldy old bishop?”Aziraphale is on an assignment too, but not the one Crowley supposes.





	1. An Accidental Miracle?

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first attempt at writing a historical fan fiction. It was fun imagining Crowley in another place and time. Comments and constructive criticism sincerely appreciated.  
LuckyPenny36

There were rats in the straw. Rats. He could hear them in the corner, scurrying, gnawing and generally doing what rats do in confined spaces. Crowley’s stomach lurched and rumbled. He was hungry, demonically hungry, but rats…ewww. Even in snake form, Crowley preferred his food, when he decided to indulge in eating, neat and unmoving, not scurrying around in dank corners infested with fleas. He shifted from foot-to-foot, unaccountably nervous. After all, head office had been remarkably specific with his instructions this time, that Joan girl was doing way too effective a job of inspiring faith in the flagging French army. For Hell’s sake, there was doubt to be sown. He was good at doubt. So why was he hesitating?

Aziraphale.

Crowley hissed.

“Fucking Aziraphale and our fucking Arrangement.”

Crowley hissed again.  
The rats scurried deeper into the straw.

Aziraphale was in France somewhere too, probably, almost certainly nearby. Heavenly visions and voices sounded like his work.

Crowley hissed a third time, and started pacing the length of the tiny cell.

“Pardon?”

“Fuck. Who said that?” He was just getting into pacing, really slithering back and forth in a smooth slink. Did he arrive in the wrong cell? No, he could still hear the steady drone of questions through the wall.

“Pardon?”

Crowley spun on his heel slowly three times before he spotted the forlorn scrap of humanity huddled in the corner. Clad in a shabby, stained, straw colored shift, the child was all legs and arms and messy mouse-brown hair. He couldn’t tell if it was a boy or a girl, but no way was the child more than 6 years old.

“Pardon?”

“Joan?”

“No!”

“Alright, alright. Not Joan then. Who are you?” He really didn’t want to smite this little waif.

Impossibly long legs unfolded out of the shabby linen and she, he could tell it was a she now, drew herself up to her full height. “Marguerite. I’m Marguerite.” She planted her hands on thin hips. “Is that Joan next door?”

Quickly revising his estimate of her age to about ten or eleven, Crowley took one step toward her, shading his snake eyes with his hand and renewing the illusion that made them look human, at least to a casual observer. This was NOT in his assignment. He was here to sow doubt and sully Joan’s reputation, not pile more pain on an already suffering scrap of a little girl. He knew what fucking Aziraphale would do – it wasn’t hard; the angel would miracle them both out of here and heal the girl’s hurts for good measure. Probably feed her up with good honest food too. 

And why not? He couldn’t help smiling a little in spite of himself. He could do it. He still remembered how. The angelic stock was still there. He could leave her here, but then he’d have to alter her memory – pretend this never happened, and that bothered him somehow. 

“Never mind Joan for now. What happened to you?” Barely a trace of a hiss to his words now, Crowley crouched down closer to the girl’s level. He wanted desperately to appear less ominous and intimidating. He had to figure out a devious way to help her and sow the doubt he was sent here for. Anything less and he’d find himself in an uncomfortably hellish situation of his own. Hell’s reprimands were not exactly known for being gentle.

“Stole a loaf of bread from the bishop is all. He had loads more. Not like he was starving.” Her dark eyes shone with sparks of defiance even as she wiped away hasty tears. “Why? What are you going to do to me now? Already lost..”

Well, then. Maybe there was a way out of this after all. She could be his living little seed of doubt. His Anti-Joan as it were. Let her spread her grudge against the wealthy bishop far and wide. Of course, she couldn’t do that if she died in this miserable little cell.

“Lost…” He couldn’t help it. Asking questions was after all, well, his thing.

She bit her lip. “Pox took my mom ages ago. Dad’s in the army I think. Only had the one sister, no idea what’s happened to her now. Maybe she got away…”

He didn’t think she really believed it. Alone in the world then, swell. He’d come here to sow doubt and he was – in himself. Was he really going to saddle himself with a lonely, friendless little French orphan just to spite some moldy old bishop?

Of course he was.

Barely a brush with his mind and the babbling sounds from the next cell increased. That’s all it took to reinforce the impression that Joan was a crazy witch; to put her feet firmly on the path of destruction that would lead to the stake.

Marguerite shrank away from the noise.

Shit, he was rustier at this than he thought.

In the end, he carried her out of the castle, disguised simply as a limp bundle of dirty laundry with only a small glamour to make the guards look the other way. That was the easy bit - convincing her to let him took hours.

The whole time they were talking, the sounds from the neighboring cell grew more and more agitated. Then suddenly, without warning, just as the sun topped the edge of the cell’s only window, they went quiet. The heavy dead sort of quiet that cries out to be broken by any normal human sound, some sign of life. Anything.

Then, and only then, Marguerite sat down next to him with a soft thud and let herself cry. Where all Crowley’s considerable powers of persuasion had failed, silence won.

“Can you really take me away?”

Crowley blinked. “Yesss.” He was too tired now to control the snakeish hiss in his speech, but she didn’t seem to notice.

“Really away with nobody following?”

Crowley nodded.

Dark eyes stared up at him for a long moment. Crowley held perfectly still as only a demon with millennia of practice waiting can.

“Let’s go.”

She clung closer than he would have thought possible. It felt… well, not good exactly, but like a vaguely familiar long-buried and not very comfortable feeling for him. He didn’t want to remember the last time he felt this way, but it had been a very long time indeed.(1)

Crowley had been listening to the leaden feet of soldiers on the stone stairs all night, clomping up and down in strictest silence, but this pair was positively chatty. The situation had changed.

“They say she finally signed it, you know?” 

“Signed what?”

“The pox-rotted confession of course, what else, denied everything. Can’t hardly blame her I guess, left alone in this pox-rotted place for a whole year.”

“She ain’t alone, William. Ain’t two hours goes by, but some lord high muckety-muck comes in here to question her again. The same pox-rotted questions over and over, enough to try the patience of the best of men, I tell you, let alone some pathetic scrap of a deluded girl.”

“You know what I mean. Where’s her fancy-pants King Charles now things are going bad for the poor mite? Quick enough with the coronation he was, but you don’t see any of the usual negotiators sniffing around trying to get her released now, do you?”

“Aww, you wouldn’t be going soft on me now, would you Thomas? Pitying the witch of Reims?”

The witch of Reims huh, Crowley nodded slowly as he waited for the soldiers to make their way back down the stairs and continue on their slow round, he could use that. Marguerite tugged at his hand.

“They’re talking about Joan, aren’t they? She’s really here?” The child’s words were harsh, almost breathless, as if she couldn’t believe what she was saying really could be true, that this could be happening to her.

“Hush.” Crowley raised his free hand to his lips. “Or did you decide you’d rather be caught? You’d rather stay here with the rats and the mad witch of Reims until the bishop finally decides to remember you exist?”

She spat on the floor at the mention of the bishop and gripped his hand tighter, her eyes wide, “No, but... but, we’re really going, just the two of us? I mean aren’t you here for her? You have to be a spy.” The words tumbled out in a rush so fast and so quiet even Crowley had trouble making them out. (2)

“No. I’m not here for her, at least not exactly and yes we’re really going, just us, and now.” 

Eyes slid past them on their way down the stairs and out of Bouvreuil Castle into the pale late May sunshine. Nobody wanted to look too closely at the bundle of blood-smeared laundry the drudge was carrying out to be washed or maybe burnt. Crowley thought the spittle made a nice touch, but Aziraphale would probably say it was overkill.

Aziraphale.

Crowley had no doubts now. None at all – he would use every demonic wile at his disposal to convince the French court that the Maid of Orléans really was nothing more than a poor deluded witch with aspirations to take the crown for hell, erm herself, yes herself.

If he had to use a miracle or two, save an orphan along the way, well so be it. Hell never was too interested in the details as long as he got the results they wanted.

Once out of sight of the castle, the bloody laundry pile grew arms and legs, legs that could, and did, kick.

All of a sudden, scared little Marguerite went from compliant and clingy, hanging on his every word, to kicking and furious. He set the whirling dervish down, keeping a demonically firm grip on her hand. “Hey, where do you think you’re going?”

“I told you, AWAY.”

“You really want to go AWAY. Alright, AWAY it is.”

Four days later, when a very confused and tired child stumbled into the French camp, the mad witch of Reims was already dead. There was a thin black snake wrapped around the girl’s left wrist, it’s deep red belly concealed against her skin.

(1) Aziraphale knows beyond a shadow of a doubt precisely the last time that Crowley went all protective over a human child; several children in fact. Huddled together for days deep in the belly of an ark – the cold dark belly of an ark that also swarmed with rats.  
(2) Well, not trouble exactly, but he did have to at least try harder than usual, extend his demonic senses a bit.


	2. Sparks Fly Upward

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley was right. Aziraphale was there, but not for the reasons the demon supposed. It’s his turn to wrestle with his desire to help and his duty to follow the orders laid out in his Assignment from Heaven.

In the end, she died for a lie.

Aziraphale tugged at the high collar of his robes, clerics robes, they let him get quite close to her. Not close enough though. Not close enough to save a stubborn girl bent on her own destruction. He sighed: humans.

His assignment was painfully clear on this point: miraculous rescues were only allowed if the girl herself prayed for it, and she hadn’t. She’d prayed to withstand the endless questions, to know that what she was doing was right, that her family would understand, but never once had she offered up a prayer to be spared from the gruesome fate awaiting her in the square.

His wings itched.

Hours of watching, cajoling and counseling. He doubted that any of it had mattered in the end. He envied her that, him, the Guardian of the Eastern Gate, a Principality, envying a human. Unthinkable, but there it was, he envied her. He envied the absolute unshakeable certainty that was palpable in the air, even now, even at this distance.

With each cord of wood the soldiers stacked, he winced a little. Then he winced even more when it started to rain sluggishly. Not a downpour, though that would only delay the inevitable, but the miserable drizzly rain that made doing anything out of doors uncomfortable. It was slowly plastering his usually fluffy blond curls flat and dragging at his robes.

He wanted to leave. 

He wouldn’t of course. He could do that for her at least. He could and would bear witness as this poor girl sacrificed herself on the altar of human ignorance and fear.

Aziraphale was so focused on his miserable assignment that he almost didn’t notice the dog. A little black dog darting in and out between the soldiers, urinating on the pile of wood, barking at the rain.

That was too much.

Gabriel would probably tell him off for interfering. Michael would be positively terse, but he just couldn’t let them do it. The dog hadn’t done anything wrong at all. It was just doing normal doggy things in a very abnormal situation. The dog at least he was going to save. No it wasn’t part of his assignment, but some things an angel just couldn’t ignore.

Just then, a tug on his hand nearly made him stumble, and Aziraphale looked down. The boy’s clothes were a bit threadbare in places and loose all over as if they were slightly too big for him. He stared up at the angel, eyes wide and pleading, a bit of frayed rope dangling from his right hand.

“Is that your dog, son?”

“Yes father. He’s all mine. He is a good little dog really, father. Promise.”

Aziraphale knelt down to the boy’s level. “I can see that, a very good little dog, except perhaps for listening sometimes, eh? Can you call him?”

“I can try.”

“Then go to it, son. Those soldiers don’t look very happy with his antics, do they?”

“Here, Cole. Come here boy. Come here, Cole, come here.” The dog picked up his head, looked in their direction, and trotted back toward the woodpile.

The boy sighed, squared his small shoulders, and tried again. “Here, Cole. Here boy.” This time, though, the dog didn’t even lift his head. Aziraphale could see the boy starting to buckle; ever so gently, he put his hands on the boy’s shoulders. “Try just one more time.”

“Why? The stubborn old thing won’t ever listen to me.” He turned suddenly, buried his face in Aziraphale’s robes and started to sob. As far as he was concerned the world was ending and there was no hope: his dog would never listen.

Frivolous miracles be … no he couldn’t even think it, not even out of respect for Crowley. He would, however save this stubborn fool of a dog. Gabriel would just have to square the paperwork with heaven later. He pushed the boy gently, but firmly, away until he was just at arm’s length. “Try again.”

“Here Cole.”

The dog looked up.

“Again.”

“Come on Cole. Come here boy.” The child did his best to pat his grubby knees invitingly. 

The dog hesitated.

“Again.”

“Here Cole. Come here.” The boy wrinkled his nose; something smelled like meat, but there wasn’t a butcher nearby that he could see. He turned to look at Aziraphale.

“Look.” The angel turned him around, and the boy gaped. Cole was trotting in their direction steadily. About halfway across the square, he jumped neatly over two soldiers that had slipped in the mud and continued on his way in a neat straight line.

Aziraphale pressed a thin strip of steak into the boy’s hand just as Cole barreled into them in search of his doggy bribe. Thin arms wrapped around his furry neck and clung tight. Unheeded, the thin frayed rope in the boy’s hand grew and thickened into a strong and serviceable if strictly utilitarian, leash. Aziraphale fastened it firmly around Cole’s neck with a small blessing to ensure that as long as it was on the dog would mind his boy obediently. He arched his back, stretched, and stood up straight. The castle doors were just starting to open.

“Run along now, son. Give Cole a good long walk on his new leash and get both of you a good supper, and a bath.”

The boy raised his head from Cole’s fur. “No money for a supper,” he said sadly, ignoring the despised bath.

“Check your pockets before you say that, son.”

Clutching the rope leash firmly in his right hand, the boy slowly patted his pockets with his left. His eyes went wide. “Thank you father,” he spluttered, giving Aziraphale a quick impulsive hug before dashing off toward the far end of the square, dragging Cole along behind him on the new leash, and calling to a small cluster of children just visible at the edge.

A smile curled the very edge of Aziraphale’s mouth for the briefest of moments, watching them run with glorious, riotous abandon. He forced his attention back to the slower, somber procession making its way to the center of the square.

In perfect silence, her bare feet never faltered on the stones.

No mere earthly sounds broke the oppressive calm until the flames crackled in the wood. 

It seemed, he thought, as though for those few eternal moments even Heaven was listening, waiting, for the one prayer that never came.

He couldn’t save her, but he would bear witness as the sparks flew upward.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed this parallel to Crowley rescuing Marguerite in the first chapter. The basic structure of one chapter for each is my plan for the rest of the series as well, although which of the ineffable idiots gets his story told first may change depending on story requirements. Thank you for reading. Comments greatly appreciated.


End file.
